


The Future is in the Past

by skyermirth



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Canon Compliant, Fix-It, Happy Ending, M/M, Soulmates, so much hate for the finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 13:25:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18550675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyermirth/pseuds/skyermirth
Summary: Everyone has to reveal their secrets before they can move on.





	The Future is in the Past

**Author's Note:**

> Like many fans, after 4x13, I felt the need to write something to make myself feel better. I hope it makes someone else feel better too.

_The greatest explorer on this earth never takes voyages as long as those of the man who descends to the depth of his heart._ – Julien Green

~ ~ ~

"Hey. Been awhile. Welcome to the Underworld."

"Oh, shit… wait. Charlton?"

Charlton, looking out of place and yet oddly attractive in a dull gray business suit, straightened his equally as dull, darker gray tie and stepped aside for Eliot to walk out of the elevator. "You remember me."

"Of course, I do. I mean it was just… wait, it wasn't just, it was – what the fuck happened? It feels like yesterday. Last week. No last year. How can the last time that I saw you feel like it was exactly the same time as my 50th birthday party? Which, to no one's surprise, I planned myself because no one would have gotten it right." 

"Come with me." They started to walk down a cool, cold, lifeless hallway. "It will feel like that for a while. Here your memories efmeanxist all together. You'll remember them all as if they never faded through time. It makes the next part easier."

"So, I'm really dead. Like dead _dead_. Not TV show dead, where I die in a cliffhanger and then come back after an 18-month hiatus?"

"Jon Snow you are not."

Eliot chuckled. "The golden age of television sure left an impression on you."

"That particular TV program showed up in a lot of people's books." Charlton stopped. "Here we are."

"Secrets Taken to the Grave," Eliot read aloud. "This does not sound like something I'm going to enjoy."

"We've been through something like this before together."

"Yes. Yes, we have." Eliot suddenly realized something and looked down at himself in horror, shocked it took him this long to see it. "A hospital gown? A hospital gown? This is what I'm wearing to march into my eternal life?"

"That's what you died in. So, yes. Down here things like that don't matter."

"Oh, but Charlton, I assure you, they do matter. They will always matter to me."

He frowned at his attire again and followed Charlton into a room that looked very much like an average corporate office, Charlton gestured towards a chair. "Sit. Sit." As Charlton goes to a cart against the wall, he said, "You don't seem surprised that your dead."

"To be honest," Eliot started and adjusted his hospital gown, pulling it over his knees and smoothing it out. "I'm surprised that I lived as long as I did. I had a long love affair with self-destruction starting at a very young age."

"Here."

"Charlton, is this…?" Eliot took a sip. "It is! It's a Physical Kids' Cottage Signature Cocktail."

"I thought it would help you get through this part. Remind you of your happy place."

Eliot leaned back in the chair and sipped the drink slowly, savoring it. "I had forgotten what this taste like. It was truly one of my many talents."

Suddenly, visions of his death flashed through his mind, and he quickly diverted his attention to something else. "By the way, how are you here, Charlton?"

"Ah. When your friends freed the Monster, I was in safe in your memories. Therefore, I stayed with you. Then while they were trying to heal you, you died. It was only for a few seconds, but it was enough time that I was able to be released. Because of the odd circumstances surrounding my transition from human life - " Charlton waved his hands. "I wasn't quite prepared to move on. Your friend, my boss, offered me an opportunity." Charlton sat up straighter, looking pleased and proud. "And I worked my way up to here."

"Well, congratulations. Who's my friend?"

"Penny. Among others. You have a lot of friends, Eliot Waugh. And, it was because of your caring about me that caught my employer’s attention. You worried about what happened to me. You even researched if you could help me. You cared enough about me that it was important to your story. It made it into your book, they read it, and, as you say, 'the rest is history.' Charlton bowed his head. "So, thank you."

"You’re welcome, but I didn't do anything." 

"It was something to me."

Feeling embarrassed by the attention, Eliot looked around the room. 

"So, tell me, Eliot. What happened once you left me and regained your body back?"

A white rush hot of shame and anguish flooded through Eliot's chest and stomach. "I’m not ready to talk about that yet," he replied, stiffly. 

"Alright. We have time. We can talk about anything you’d like."

They sit there in silence. Charlton unmoving, watching Eliot. Eliot trying to avoid his unwavering, penetrating gaze.

Eventually, Charlton cleared his throat. "But we do have to talk. Seems like I'm going to have to help you a little? Maybe tell me… what sort of life did you have?"

"Okay. I guess we have to do this." Eliot sighed and put his drink down, after wasting time looking for a coaster. "Early years, dicks and daddy issues and murdering my childhood abuser, you know about those."

"I mean - how do you feel about the life you had?"

"Oh. Well, I sort of… this is supposed to be hard, right?"

"Yes."

"It's a lot harder in this outfit. But I have to let things out here before I can move on. Have I got that right?"

"Yes."

"I guess I don't think I had much of a life." It shocked him, those words. He hadn't really meant to say it. He thought it and it just sort of shot out of his mouth.

"You didn't do anything special? Nothing grand?"

"Well, I did help save Fillory from a Dark Lord. I guess that could be considered grand. Maybe even spectacular." A memory comes to him just then, its beauty flares up his pain.

"Very much so. And?"

"And I had a family. A pretty nice one."

"Fen and your daughter."

"Yes. Fen showed up with a newborn baby one day and declared it was ours. After making sure, well mostly sure, she wasn’t kidnapped, we raised her. But our family was bigger than that. We all raised her. Margo and Josh. Julia and Penny. We even sent her to stay with Alice at the library once a year. Kady was more of a vagabond. She showed up every once and awhile, with gifts from Earth, gadgets, music, clothes, the sort of stuff a teenager on any planet would love. She was the cool aunt."

"I met your daughter once during a visit with Alice, before I transferred here," Charlton said. "It was my honor and privilege to meet High King Gloria the Warrior, even before she became that."

"High? Warrior? What?"

"After your death, a dark wizard believed that Fillory had become vulnerable. She wanted to conquer the Library, the Underworld, Earth, everything. She was pretty powerful. But Gloria was better. Gloria led the army that defeated her. She rode into battle, fighting both with magic and a sword. Her bravery and warrior skills became legendary. And when her mother and aunt decided to step down from their thrones, she won the title of High King by a landslide. The people of Fillory adored and worshiped her. Her compassion and loyalty for her people carried through for centuries."

"That’s..." Eliot realized he had started to cry. Instinctively, he went to pull a handkerchief from his pocket, but he had no pockets. Charlton handed him a box of tissues. After wiping his face, he continued, "Her mother always said that she's like me, but she's not. Her confidence was actually real. She was a magician, like me, that much is true. I taught her magic. She taught me how not to be a selfish, self-loathing asshole, at least some of the time. But she didn’t get her bravery or her warrior skills from me. That’s Margo and Fen. She got her intelligence from Alice. Her compassion from Julia. Her sense of adventure from Kady."

"What did she get from you?"

"Her loyalty, I suppose. And really good fashion sense." Eliot smiled, remembering how they played dress up when Gloria was little. "I loved our little, messed up, family. We all governed Fillory together, and we made a difference too. We changed things. We united kingdoms, without forced marriages or war. Fillory's residents never went hungry a day that we ruled. But that's not a secret, is it?"

"Not really, no. Anything else that you did in your life?"

"I taught at Brakebills for a while as a favor to Dean Fogg. It was mostly uneventful and ordinary. Except…"

"Except for?"

"This one young man. Fuck. I still cringe when I say things like that. Anyway. Craig was his name. Craig was gifted, but anxious and angry, angry from hurt and fear. A dangerous combination. The other professors wrote him off, but I saw some potential in him. I welcomed him into our family, even showed him Fillory. He got better, over time, and he went on to do some pretty great things."

"Great things like becoming a Healer."

"Yes. He was my Healer. Tried to heal me, but he couldn't. I'd say it was my secret that I didn't want him to, but I already confided in Julia that I was too tired to go through all of the treatments."

"I'll let you in on a secret."

"That is your thing."

"He healed a young woman at Brakebills. A women, who would've died if it wasn't for him. He adapted a spell to save her. It was unique and brilliant, and he was the only person in any world who would’ve thought of it. When she grew up, there was a dangerous virus that could have wiped out half of the human population on Earth. But she found the cure and a vaccine. She saved everyone.

"Oh. That's… that's amazing. All because of Craig."

"Another secret. That's in your book too. It was because of you."

"But all I did was mentor someone. He did the important work. She does the most important."

"I think you know that someone can change your life."

He finished his drink, and without asking, went for another. As he sat back down, he asked, what happens to Margo?"

"Like everyone, she will die eventually. But she'll be ready for it. Old and in her sleep."

"I don't know if anyone down here will be ready for her. In fact, I’m surprised she hasn’t crashed down here yet, screaming at everyone to give me back."

"Who says she hasn’t? We have very strong wards."

Eliot shook his head and chuckled. It wasn't a surprise. He knew she'd get over him. They had pretended it would be okay, but they both had known the truth. Coughing up blood never ends well.

"You said that you didn’t have much of a life." Charlton leaned forward, put his elbows on his knee, and stared at Eliot. The crease between his eyebrows deepening the longer he stared. "It seems to me you did. Why do you feel this way?"

"I used to go back and forth between Fillory and Earth. Our family was spread out all over. They all seemed to have established roots, but I… I never felt quite at home anywhere." He knew that wasn't enough. This wasn't what they wanted. They wanted it all. All the emotions that Eliot had pushed to the back of his mind, yet drove everything that he did. "Or with anyone."

"What else, Eliot. What happened between daddy issues and dicks and your family?"

"So that’s it, huh? That’s my secret. You want me to talk about him."

’Even down here, where it’s supposed to be easier, I still can’t say his name,’ he thought.

"You tell me what you need to tell me. We can sit here until you’re ready. Drink. Drink."

Eliot picked up the drink and finds a rhythm of taking a sip, staring into the glass, taking a sip, staring, sip, staring. Until the glass is empty and the pain is too much to bear. 

He took a deep long breath and, on the exhale, said, "I never got over him. I guess that’s my secret."

"Is that all?"

"That was a full-on, pile of shit, fucking lot. I never, never got over losing him. I never got over not knowing what could have been. I never got over not being able to tell him… tell him so many things that I wanted to. I never stopped being angry. Angry that I spent all of those months trapped inside my mind, thinking that I was going to tell him how, when we were trapped in Fillory, working on that fucking mosaic, that after a few years, I stopped wanting to solve it." Eliot laughed. "I woke up every goddamn, fucking morning, in that simple cottage, wearing simple clothes, leading the same sort of country life that I had run away from so fast, and thought _‘Please. Not today. I'm not ready. Just one more day, then I'll be ready.’_ But it was always the same, everyday." He wiped the tears off his face again.

"I never even got to say one word to him before he was gone. Not one fucking word. I woke up in so much physical pain and found out that I lost him. It broke me. I was never the same. I didn't only lose him. I lost my faith that day. I lost faith that I would ever find love. I lost faith that I would ever be happy again. I lived a lonely life because I never let go of the pain of losing him."

He stopped and looked resignedly at his Underworld therapist. "I never got over losing Quentin Coldwater. 

I had a wonderful wife and daughter. And I had Margo. My Bambi, who would die for me, and almost did a few times. And she was enough. They all were enough. I gave everything that I could to them. But I was greedy. I wanted more. I wanted Q. I was so pathetic. I’d sneak off to Earth and find sex workers in the hedge witch communities, who would agree to do an illusion spell to look like him. And it wasn’t even about the sex – I mean we had sex, obviously – but I just wanted to see his stupid fucking face again. But it was never quite right and it just made it hurt more. And, fuck, that was a lot more than I wanted to say." He looked at his drink. "Charlton, did you spike my drink?"

Charlton's face remained passive. "Now that would be silly, wouldn't it? You don’t really have a body anymore, and I wouldn't need to. This place helps you to feel the things you couldn't up there."

"Great." Eliot slapped his knees and began to stand. "So, I can…" But Charlton was shaking his head, so he settled back down in the chair.

"Why couldn’t you let him go?"

"Because… I thought… Oh, fuck it. Because I didn’t think I deserved love. That kind of love. That ‘you're my person’ kind of love. He made me think that maybe I did. Then he was gone. I was broken and alone. But that’s not on him. He wouldn’t have wanted me to wallow. Not moving on that was on me. All on me, punishing myself."

"And what do you think now?"

"I think I had the love that I needed all along. I loved my family. Hard. I loved Fillory. I even loved Brakebills. I wanted to protect them all. Holding on to Q wasn’t fair to his memory or to them or to me. I think that, in the end, I did have a really good life, even if I was too stupid and too scared to recognize it for what it was."

"You're ready, but you already knew that, didn't you?"

"Yeah, it's weird, but I did."

Charlton leads him through another hallway into the worst room Eliot had ever been to in his life. "Come on, now. I know we're all dead down here, but this is an abomination. It's evil. Add some warmth, some color, to this place. A few couches, some natural lighting, a few throw pillows. I'm starting to think this is actually hell."

Charlton bowed his head. "I will take your suggestions to my superiors."

"Where are we going anyway?"

"I'm going right here. And you are going to go through there. To the other side."

"What's on the other side?"

"That is beyond my pay grade." Charlton handed him a card. "You'll need this."

"A Metrocard. Honestly, you people, you really need to add some flair to this process. I'm about to move onto the great beyond. A gold engraved invitation or some ancient scroll or something!"

"Eliot Waugh the First it was –"

"The first? What do you - ?"

"My apologies. I failed to tell you. Gloria had two sons. She named the youngest after you. Eliot Waugh the Second."

"Thank you. Though, I don't know what the world did to deserve two of me."

"Eliot Waugh the First it was my pleasure to be part of your death. I don't believe we will meet again. I hope your afterlife experience is pleasant."

"What do I do?"

"Just walk through there and take a leap of faith, I suppose."

"Thank you, Charlton. Oh, and, for the record, I hated the finale of Lost. But, now, I'm sort of rethinking that assessment." 

"Same. Same," Charlton said as Eliot turned and looked at the nothingness in front of him. There was actually nothing. Eliot might have been scared, if he wasn't so annoyed by the lack of ceremony of it all and this damn hospital gown. And bare feet. This truly was starting to feel like hell. His weekly, ordinary Sunday brunches had more panache than all of the Underworld. 

The other side was no better. It looked like what film makers thought a futuristic metro station would look like. Eliot was alone. He spotted a large monitor that stood out bright in the grayness of it all. On the screen were instructions, "Touch here to select your final destination."

That was when it really sunk in. He was dead. This was permanent. And he had no idea where he was going now. Or if he was going anywhere. Maybe one of the final destination choices was 'nothingness.' He doesn’t know how long he stood there, in front of the screen, trying to guess what the choices would be. Finally, he worked up the courage and touched the screen. A series of choices popped up.

The first was "Live in any time period of your choosing." He pressed the icon next to it that gave the choices. He scrolled through. The 1920s had always appealed to him. But for eternity? 

The second choice was "Go back to childhood." That one was obviously never, ever going to happen.

The third choice was "Home." That confused him. Wouldn't that be the same thing as his childhood?

The fourth choice was "A solitary eternity in the environment of your choosing." There were several environments, including a beachfront, the open sea, and a moon. 

The last choice was "We pick for you." That seemed ominous, and, given their lack of taste, Eliot was sure he wouldn't want them picking his eternity.

He looked back at the third choice – "Go home." It was the one that felt like it called to him. _Home._ Didn't he say he never felt like he never had a home all of those years? But what is home to him? Could it be? No. Eliot wasn't the sort of soul who got what he wanted. He was forever the butt of a cosmic joke. But he wanted it. Really wanted it. And what had Charlton said, "take a leap of faith." He had forgotten what that felt like. It felt scarier than when he had to tell Margo that she had to stop turning Josh into a goat every time she got mad at him. With shaky hands, he selected 'Go home' and the screen instructed him to swipe his metrocard. He did and a computerized woman's voice rang out through the station, making him jump.

"The train will approach in less than one minute. Please stand back from the platform and mind the gap."

A not unexpected plain, boring silver train approached. It stopped in front of Eliot and the doors opened. Inside he saw nothing. He told himself to be brave, took a deep breath, and walked into the blackness into blinding light. His senses, which he hadn't realized had become numb inside the sterile Underworld, all burst alive as he was assaulted by sounds, sights, and smells. He heard birds and a breeze through the trees that were surrounding him. He smelled the outdoors, the woods and earth and flowers, and the sun warming his face. It felt like… Oh, shit, it felt like Fillory in the spring. And was that the smell of peaches. 

"Eliot."

He saw him then. Standing next to the mosaic, looking horrified and anxious. Or normal for him.

"Oh my god, Q?"

Q ran toward him, looking desperate. "Eliot, what the fuck? What the fuck are you doing here? Why are you in a hospital gown? What happened - did you not survive your stomach wound?"

"What stomach wound - what? "

"With the ax!"

"Wha - yeah, yes I survived that. Why are you asking about that now?"

"Then how are you here? What did you do?" Q yelled. He was getting more upset. "You didn't do anything stupid, did you? Like make some deal? Or you didn't – no, fuck, come on, you didn't kill yourself to come save me, did you? What if you can't get back?"

"Q – Q, calm down." And just like that, like it was only yesterday, Eliot fell back into a familiar routine, calming Q down. He gripped Q's shoulders. "Deep breath, please. Because I'm really confused right now too and you're freaking me the fuck out."

"Freaking you out! I'm the one who just died!"

"You didn't just die."

"What?"

"Q, you've been dead. For a very long time. 31 years, 2 months, and 19 days to be exact."

Q looked at him like he had lost his mind. "I just died. I left Penny and walked through, well through, nothing, I guess. There was this weird train station and I had to select –"

"Your final destination. I know me too. And you selected....?"

"We pick for you."

"What?"

"That was what I selected."

"Really? That's what you picked?"

Q rolled his eyes. "It was that or "be famous" and the choices were musician, actor, or writer. Whatever. That's not the point. And then I was here for only like, um, maybe a minute, and you appeared."

"Wow. Okay. That's weird. Q, I died too. But I was fifty-eight when I died. That's why the hospital gown. I was at Brakebills' hospital ward and I died and…" It all made sense in that moment, and he become overwhelmed with the knowledge of it. He pulled Q into a hug. "Q, Q, Q. I can't believe this. Don't you see. There's some weird time stuff going on here, but you died. I died much later. But you didn't have to spend a moment here alone without me. You told them to pick, and they picked this for you."

Q pulled away. "You died? After a long, um, longish life?"

"Yes. Natural causes," Eliot said, crossing his heart with his index finger. "I swear."

"Oh. Okay. So - so you had to come the same way I did."

"Sounds like it."

"What did you pick?" he asked and studied Eliot's face as he waited for an answer.

"I picked 'go home.'" 

Q's forehead wrinkled, making Eliot's heart feel like it would explode. It was so familiar, and he had longed to see this face, and all the emotions it wore, for so long, but at the same time, it felt like he had just lost Q, the pain felt new and raw. "This is where the universe knew I wanted to be. We're here in Fillory, back at the mosaic. Together. I think this is our afterlife. But was it me? Did what I want bring you here?"

"When I made my option, and thought of home, this is exactly what I hoped for. Our past. This cottage, here with you, was, is, always has been home for me." He took Q's face in his hands, waited for it to relax. "You're home to me. This is exactly where I want to be."

Q began to sob. "This is what I hoped it would be too. This is exactly where I want to be too. This, then, it was the only time in my life that I was happy."

Eliot rested his forehead against Q's, put his face in his hands, and the weight of missing Q all of those years flowed out of him in tears. "I missed you so much," he kept saying, over and over. Until, exhaustion swept through him suddenly, almost knocking him off his feet. He looked at Q, who looked just as tired.

"Come here," Q said. He walked them over to the bed. 

Eliot reached down, brushing his hands over the quilt that had been in his dreams for decades. 

This…" Q frowned at this hospital gown. "This is awful. You must be so annoyed that this is what you wore to you wore to your death." He reached around to Eliot's back and released the ties and slipped the gown off. 

"Same for you," he whispered. "These clothes are depressing." He started by unzipping the hoodie, and, with his eyes locked with Q's, removed all of his clothing. It should have felt odd to Eliot that it didn't feel sexual. It was absolutely the first time in his life – well, not life anymore, but in his existence – that he was naked with a man he was attracted to and wasn't turned on. It was only soft and intimate, and he felt simply love and affection passing between them.

Q smiled at him. Eliot can't remember the last time he had seen Q smile, even before he had died. He can't remember the last time they were together without quests and gods between them. It felt natural to be standing here, naked and exposed, with Q in front of him.

"Hey," Q whispered.

"Hey." This time, Eliot kissed him first. The kiss only amplified the odd feelings of time and memories. This kiss felt like they hadn't kissed a hundred times before. It felt like their first kiss. Hell, it felt like Eliot's first kiss. It made him feel young. Young? Wait…

He pulled away. "You aren't looking at me like I look any different. You didn't look surprised that I look, well, fifty-eight. You assumed I followed you here right after you died, so do I – do I look twenty-seven to you?"

"Um, yeah. You look exactly like the last time that I saw you."

"Oh my god. That's fucking fabulous!" Laughing, he pulled them both down on the bed, making Q giggle along with him. "Twenty-seven. I'm twenty-seven again. Glorious freakin' twenty-fucking-seven."

Eliot hovered above Q, grinning down at him, but Q's face changed. He looked, well like standard Q, serious and pensive. "I, er, I'm sorry that I left you. I was there. There at the campfire. Um, Penny brought me to watch. You looked so broken. I wanted to touch you. I wanted to…" His voice trailed off as he ran his fingers lightly over Eliot's face.

This place obviously started to have an effect on Eliot, quickly. That time, that pain, it all felt a little less raw for the first time in over thirty years. 

"I was broken. Because I was sorry too, Q. I'm sorry that I never told you, back then or after, that I never wanted to leave here. That I had secretly wished that we never solved the mosaic." He saw Q's breath hitch and the tears that sprung to his eyes. "And I'm sorry that I didn't trust in you. That I never gave us a chance."

"We have a lot of time to tell each other how sorry we are. I wonder what it'll be like here, for us. Are we in the past? Or is this something altogether different?"

"Does it matter?"

"No. I – don't you have questions though? Will we age? Will we grow old? What can we do here? What do we have to do here? Do we have to brush our teeth?"

"Oh, Q. My _teeth_ were not the first thing that I thought of. One thing I know we won't need - condoms."

Q's eyes widened. "I've never… wow, okay, that's something to look forward to."

"Q, it's the afterlife. I think we'll be able to do anything that we want. But for right now…" Eliot brushed his thumb over Q's lips before kissing them, gently. "I'm tired. And you look exhausted. It's so quiet here. I think we need to rest." 

Q let him maneuver him in the bed, so that he was the big spoon and Q the little, their legs tangled up together. He pulled the quilt up to their shoulders, paired their hands together and held them tight to Q's chest.

Q squeezed Eliot's hand and nuzzled even closer, his warm skin making Eliot even sleepier. "I was thinking, um, maybe, if you want, we could go on a sea voyage, if we can, if that sort of thing is possible here."

"I'll make it possible for you, Q. I'll make anything you want possible." Before he closed his eyes, Eliot looked around at the cottage, the garden, the mosaic, and up at the Fillorian sky. He wanted to enjoy all of this for a while. It's simple beauty and the tranquility, that is, he thought, until Margo eventually shows up, bursting in and wondering how either of them had gotten along for so long without her.


End file.
